“Adriana?” I had just returned from confession when I saw a stream of maids passing in and out of her private chambers with armloads of gowns and shoes and linens. “Adriana, are you leaving for a journey?” Properly speaking, I should have addressed her formally as was customary for a dutiful daughter-in-law, but we had been through too much to be anything but equals.

“Yes. I’m leaving.” In the middle of the bustle she sat still, a plump figure in violet velvet slumped on a footstool. Her hands were still too, and that was something different—she was never without a piece of embroidery or a list of plans for the next banquet, or more likely the palazzo’s account books with their figures lovingly totted and checked down to the last scudo. “Yes, I’m leaving, Giulia. I’m going to my niece in Liguria, and I don’t think I shall be back soon.”

“Is your niece ill?” I came into the chamber, moving a pile of embroidered linen shifts and taking a seat. “You said she’d had a baby not long ago. I can accompany you—”

“No, I’m going to stay with her. I’m not needed here anymore, you see.” Adriana looked up at me, tried to smile. “Little Joffre and Lucrezia grown and married with households of their own; they don’t need me to supervise them. And you don’t need a chaperone either, Giulia. You’ve long since proved yourself a good faithful girl.”

“But why now?” Because I could see pain in her eyes, bewildered pain like a puppy who has just been kicked, and it was a strange image to pair with that of my sleek and self-assured mother-in-law. “What’s happened?”

“Oh, just Lucrezia.” Another attempt at a smile. “Goodness, but girls of her age can be tiresome! Be on your guard when Laura turns seventeen—”

“Adriana.”

“It’s nothing, my dear. Really nothing. Lucrezia sitting with Sancha, down in the garden just now, sunning their hair. I came out to sit with them. It’s a nice thing about being an old woman, you know; sitting in the sun without a hat because you don’t have to worry anymore about ruining your skin—”

“You’re not so old as that.” I motioned the maids back out of earshot. “Go on.”

“Well, that Sancha. She made one of her little jokes—oh, what a nasty piece she is, Joffre deserved better! She joked about lending me that expensive cream she rubs into her face. Not that it would do me any good, she said, because I had wrinkled old skin like a lizard.” Adriana’s hand crept up to touch her own cheek.

“Sancha’s a tart,” I comforted. “A thoughtless little tart who probably has the French disease by now. We’ll see how much she pokes fun at other people’s looks when she starts coming out in pustules.”